1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to kitchenware, specifically to opening coconuts.
2. Description of Related Art
A coconut consists of water at the very center which is surrounded by meat, or endosperm, a thin brown cuticle, or testa, a hard brown shell, or endocarp, and an outer husk. The outer husk is usually removed before the coconut is sold for cooking.
Throughout time the opening of coconuts has been a somewhat difficult and hazardous undertaking. Although there is no set formula, the traditional approach has involved the use of a range of dangerous tools including machete, cleaver, cutlass, hatchet, knife, hammer, nails and ice pick. To the novice, the use of any of these tools can be hazardous and lead to both personal injury and damage to property. The task is not made any easier by the ungainly shape of the coconut. One approach to making the opening of the nut easier is to heat it first. However, this practice is not ideal since it drives off some of the essential oils in the meat and also makes the meat more liable to become rancid.
Several solutions to opening the nut and the husk have been proposed but most are for commercial use and involve large, expensive machinery. There therefore exists the need for a safer tool to perform the hazardous task of procuring the water and meat from a coconut in the kitchen, and, one that is inexpensive to produce and compact in size. The only apparatus known to the applicant that can perform the cutting function in a kitchen is U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,088 to Rubio (1982). However, this appliance has a number of drawbacks, mainly emanating from the fact that it is electrically powered. This adds to the size and cost. It also requires repeated opening of the cover to start and stop the electric motor to facilitate the tightening of the cutters against the coconut until the nut is completely cut in half. A further shortcoming of Rubio's device is that he does not provide for the removal of the valuable coconut water prior to cutting.
With respect to the piercing of the coconut, in order to drain off the water, the applicant considered U.S. Pat. No. 1,277,308 to Gunturiz (1918) but found it suffered from the usual drawbacks from hammering into the ungainly shaped nut. Namely, the potential of the hammering leading to injury, and or, smashing the nut thereby possibly contaminating the water and meat. U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,559 to Sanabria (1992) is designed to puncture through the husk and the nut in order to gain access to the water. There are two issues with this invention. Firstly, with this invention, the husk is still on and this implies the nut is young and not well developed. As the coconut matures the nut becomes harder and can only be penetrated through the softer eyes after dehusking. Secondly, it has a sharp blade and the invention does not address the issue of supporting the ungainly shaped nut while attacking it with this potentially dangerous tool. Another related piece of art is the Australian device known as the CocoTap AU Pat. 2004101090 to Paul Douglas Richardson (2005). This device suffers from the same two issues as the Sanabria invention.